


The Symbols of the War

by Dragonsigma



Category: Original Work
Genre: Diplomacy, Gen, Mythology - Freeform, Nonbinary Character, Storytelling, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 20:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10884480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonsigma/pseuds/Dragonsigma
Summary: The poets say it was the healer in the feather cloak who ended the war after so many years. Maril themself would say otherwise.





	The Symbols of the War

The poets say it was the healer in the feather cloak who ended the war after so many years. The healer themself would say otherwise, and that only makes the tale more intriguing. For theirs was an act that inspired artists centuries into the future, and that in itself makes it important. The symbols are known to all: the battle, the portal, the feather, the broken sword. 

The battle, portrayed in early years by actors in masks and later by equally faceless shadow puppets, was only one in a countless string of such battles, only some of which have been proven to have truly happened. The reasons for the war were lost in myth, and scholars disagree as to the causes of the known conflicts. This battle was possibly due to an insult by one lord to another, or as some playwrights like to claim, the killing of a messenger bird. The playwrights love their symbols.

However it began, Maril’s fellows, strong warriors all, won the battle quickly. Too quickly for the tastes of the artists who strengthen the adversary in their retellings, for what sort of a story is a fight too easily won? But however it is shown, Maril’s comrades beat back the enemy, send those still able to run or crawl cowering back to their lord, abandoning their injured fellow.

And the portal - a magic that would be absurd to replicate for the sakes of theater, though some have tried - the portal through which Maril’s friends were to return to their fortress. 

But Maril paused on the threshold, turned back to see the dying soldier of their enemy’s army, a fallen man crying out in pain to gods who had long since abandoned him. And the philosophers will argue whether they saw the use of their action or if their heart was simply too soft, but whatever the reason was, they found they could not take another step. They turned away from the portal, walked across the bloody battlefield. And knelt beside the soldier to lay their cloak over his wounds. The man, astonished but in too much pain to pull away, passed into unconsciousness. Maril waited, and when ten heartbeats had passed, pulled the cloak away to reveal clothes still tattered but a body healed.

They would see that man again, across the table at the signing of the treaty, neither fully believing their roles in this resolution, but pleased all the same. The treaty, for which the poets save their most elaborate language, the treaty where the last sword was broken on the table as a purposeful symbol of the end of conflict.

The historians hesitate to credit Maril with the peace, for there were of course many other factors, influences far too vast for any single person in the midst of war to see. Maril’s mercy was a symbol, nothing more. Their act saved one person; it cannot be proven to be the cause of the peace that saved many more. 

But then, it is the symbols that remain, after all else has faded. 


End file.
